


Breaking Down

by Fenix21



Series: Rift [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Brother Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief, brother cuddling, caretaker!sam, father/son tensions, hurt!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 21:49:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5021743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>It was a tenet of their existence, right alongside 'toughen up, Sammy' and 'look after your little brother, Dean.' John's sole purpose in life was to avenge Mary's death, and that didn't leave room for the possibility of him finding comfort, solace, or love in the company of anyone else. John was alone. The sky was blue. Some things were immutable.</em>
</p><p>Sam comforts a distraught Dean after John takes a genuine interest in a woman at a bar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Down

The number of times Sam had seen his older brother cry could probably be counted on less than one hand, and none of them had ever been for himself. 

He could remember once, long ago, standing in a cemetery, far off from a small crowd of people gathered around a grave and the quiet, stoic figure of a young father who was holding a girl a year or two older than Sam firmly against his side while she sobbed and kept reaching for the grave, consciously or not, shaking her head in denial of the suddenly harsh and cold reality she found herself faced with. He remembered Dean's hand curling so tight around his own that he tried to shake loose of his brother's grip until he looked up and saw the slick tracks of tears drying on Dean's cheeks in the cold, wintery wind. Dean's gaze hadn't been on the girl or her father, though. It had been on John, whose face was set, stony and blank and silent. 

Dad left them at Pastor Jim's that night and didn't show back up for three days, and then only half conscious, stumbling, and with one arm dragged across Jim's shoulders as he hauled John up the rectory stairs to an empty cot in one of the small, spare rooms. It was the last time they ever stayed around long enough after a hunt to share in their victim's grief.

The only other time that immediately came to mind was much more recent and quite a bit hazier in Sam's memory, because he'd had a lot of morphine in his system at the time. Not to mention Kreever venom, because John hadn't been allowed close enough to him yet to unpack his wounds and clean them with holy water. The only reason Dean had been sitting in the dark shadows of the ICU room in the middle of the night, with one hand stuck through the bedrail and tangled in Sam's hair, that still had some blood and monster guts in, and the other wound tightly in Sam's un-bandaged right hand, was because he'd already managed to flirt his way into the hearts of three of the floor nurses with his charming smile and the sweet, honest worry for his little brother that tugged at the corners of his pretty mouth. Sam thought he was dreaming when he'd opened his eyes for a few muzzy, sleepy seconds and found Dean's face beside his on the pillow, just enough moonlight filtering in through the blinds that he could see the well worn path of tears on his brother's face.

The scar that wound from Sam's ribs up toward his shoulder from that particular incident still pulled uncomfortably when it was especially cold.

The number of times Sam had ever seen his brother shake or tremble, from fear or pain or grief, didn't exist in his living memory. 

Dean had a sure and steady hand, whether he was shooting a Werewolf in the heart at point blank range, or holding the edges of John's blood-slick skin together so he could stitch it. Dean didn't even get the shakes coming off an adrenaline high after a hunt, even a particularly bad one when things went arse over teakettle and more than halfway to hell before they managed to get the job done by sheer stubborn will, dumb luck, or the grace of some higher power none of them would openly admit to. It was Dean's eternally steady heartbeat that Sam would press his ear to after those badly fucked up hunts, and curl himself into his brother's lap in the backseat of the Impala and pretend to sleep so he didn't have to face the nightmares.

So, to feel Dean's hot, juttering breaths against his throat now and be crushed so close and tight to his chest that he could feel his brother's pounding heart and the taut, trembling muscles of his back beneath his palms, sent a frisson of terror tripping up Sam's spine, one vertebrae at a time. He tried to draw a breath, to shift enough that he could look into his brother's face, but Dean's arms just tightened further and he pressed his face deeper into the curve of Sam's neck. 

After an uncertain stretch of minutes and Dean making no move to release him, Sam wound his arms around his brother's ribs and settled under the weight of his hold, pressing back firmly, giving him whatever silent support he could. He waited, listening to Dean's body sob in silent, wracking quakes while Sam's own insides quivered in fear and apprehension of whatever could bring him to this.

'Bastard,' Dean finally hissed, low, barely audible, between rough breaths. 'Held her hand.'

'Dad?' Sam asked softly. He didn't need to, though he couldn't recall Dean ever speaking about their father with such venom in his voice. Dean ducked his head in a quick nod. Sam said nothing more, just waited out his brother's continued silence.

Sam had never really considered the ramifications of John taking any interest in a woman. He never had before. It was a tenet of their existence, right alongside 'toughen up, Sammy' and 'look after your little brother, Dean.' John's sole purpose in life was to avenge Mary's death, and that didn't leave room for the possibility of him finding comfort, solace, or love in the company of anyone else. John was alone. The sky was blue. Some things were immutable.

All things change with time, though, and whatever Dean had seen John do tonight had upset him, shaken him to his core, cracked his foundations, and unbalanced the already precarious scales of his sensibilities. What baffled Sam was, why.

John was not immune to women, and he had certainly never balked at utilizing the patented Winchester charm on them when it served his own ends. Dean had inherited the trait and, at the tender age of nearly eighteen, had become almost the master their father was in its use.

So it was nothing as ordinary as John smiling or making conversation with someone of the female persuasion. There had to be something else.

Dean trembled against him again, like he was chilling from a sharp wind. Sam tried to pull back, but his brother made a high, pained sound in his throat and held on tighter.

'Dean, let me—' Sam unwound his arms from around his brother and pushed his hands between them, up under Dean's coat, to try and slide it from his shoulders. Reluctantly, Dean let Sam work his sleeves down, hung his head like a puppy waiting to be whipped. Sam's heart clenched. He'd never seen Dean look so defeated.

'Sit?' Sam said quietly and gave Dean a very gentle backward push to sit down on the bed, then knelt at his feet to unlace his boots.

'Held her hand, Sammy,' Dean whispered brokenly. 'Like he needed…'

Whatever the end of that thought was, Dean could either not find the words to express it, or couldn't bring himself to speak them aloud. He sat motionless, let Sam manipulate him, tug off his muddy boots and run his hands up and down Dean's calves a couple of times in a warming, comforting gesture. He stared at his hands, limp in his lap, at Mary's ring that Sam had a vague memory of John wordlessly handing over to him a few years ago. 

There had been no explanations, no words of wisdom, no last thoughts of love or well wishes conveyed from the woman who had worn it. He'd taken it from a deep pocket of his duffle one morning just before check-out time, turned it over once in the watery light from the rainy day outside, and held it out to Dean. 

Dean had taken it to a jewelers in the next town they landed in, had it cleaned and polished, and gotten a box to put it in. He'd sat for several nights, after he thought Sam had gone to sleep and John was either three sheets to the wind over a bottle of Jack or buried under six feet of research, and stared at it, glinting in the light. Sam knew from the concentrated set of his brother's mouth that he was trying to decide if he should wear it or keep it tucked safe in its new velvet box, and just what John had meant in giving it to him in the first place.

Dean turned the ring on his finger, watched it catch the light dully. It needed cleaning again, but it had been a while since they'd lit any place long enough for him to take it to someone, and Sam knew he wouldn't chance having to leave it behind if they were forced to go in a hurry.  

'S Mom's birthday,' Dean finally mumbled.

Sam stilled for a moment, schooling his face in careful sympathy before looking up to meet his brother's broken gaze. 'I know.'

He did know. Sam knew Mary's birthday like he new so many other facts; had seen it written in the margins of John's journal on one of the early pages; but that's all it was to him. A date. A fact. A point in his history, as distant and emotionless as the discovery of the Rosetta stone, because he had no memory of it, not like Dean did. He had never given Mary a birthday gift; no bracelets made from macaroni and pipe cleaners; no construction paper cards cut in the rough shape of a heart by a toddler's unsteady hand.

So. On this, of all days, in a moment of remembered grief, John must have reached outside his own loneliness for the comfort of human contact, and it had fucked Dean up royally to see it happen.

Sam pushed to his feet, crawled up on the bed beside Dean and moved around behind him. He reached around Dean's chest, tugged at him gently, insistently. Dean was too big to simply manhandle back up the bed like Sam wanted to. He'd hit six feet last year, nearly full grown, with the muscle mass and weight to go with it. Dean didn't seem inclined to move at first, until Sam leaned in closer and nosed at the soft hairs just above his collar. He shivered a little, like he was coming back to himself from far off in his own head, and then pushed backward, letting Sam's arms guide him up the mattress until he could lay down without his feet hanging over the end. 

Sam tucked up against him, pushed his knee between Dean's, and tucked his toes in under his calf. He slung an arm across Dean's stomach, crooked it so he could get a fistful of flannel at chest level, and then settled in until he could hear his brother's thumping heartbeat in his ear and feel his own breath rebound against his cheek from their closeness.

Dean's arm came up around Sam's back and pulled him snug, and instead of just creating a cradle for Sam to lay against, Dean turned inward, curved and fit his body to Sam's, taking for once, instead of just complacently giving.

There were a thousand things Sam wanted to say, to offer comfort, to help Dean reason out John's actions, but he knew none of it would help. Dean didn't want to talk it out. He probably didn't even want to think about it. His patented approach to problems too big to deal with or that were beyond his ability to do anything about, was to sleep.

 _Get some sleep, Sammy._ How many times had Dean said that? _It'll all be better in the morning._ And it often was. 

Nighttime brought out ghosts of a different nature for Sam. While the world went quiet with sleep around him, Sam's brain kicked into high gear and often took him down roads that got increasingly brambly and dark. Dean's steady breathing and strong hand stroking down his back were always enough to bring him up out of the overwhelming swampland of his own thoughts and help him settle into sleep.

Not all things could be solved so easily, Sam knew, and he suspected this was one that would still be hanging on in the back of Dean's mind for a good long time; but they both had those things. Those unresolved issues that they just pushed down and pushed back and kept in the deeper, darker places of themselves; but life went on, and so did they.

Dean turned his head, pressed his face into Sam's hair and just breathed there for a moment. Sam could feel it, warm and damp, across his scalp.

'If he—' Dean started, but cut himself off on a small hissed curse. 'The hell would be the point then, huh, Sammy?'

He huffed a dry, brittle, painful laugh and slung his other arm around Sam to draw him in even closer.

Sam didn't need to ask, 'the point of what?' Didn't want to. 

John's motivation, the catalyst for all their lives leading to this point on this path, was his love for Mary, his obsessive need to rid the world of the evil that had stolen her from him. If that fire were to flag, to gutter and go out, there would be no purpose, not for any of them. It was hard enough for Dean and Sam now, blindly following John's lead. Dean's loyalty held him fast to John's side, that and his child-perfect memories of Mary backlit by John's undying devotion. Sam didn't even have that. Sam's only life had ever been this: the hunt. He had no former life he was struggling to get back to, no vengeance to heat his blood, and only the beginnings of a notion that there was another way out there, but it meant leaving this, leaving Dad. Leaving Dean.

Sam un-fisted his hand in Dean's shirt, skated it up to curve and cup the side of Dean's face, and whispered,

'Get some sleep, Dean.'


End file.
